Old Gods Expanded

One of my favorite aspects of Crusader Kings 3 is the ability to make your own religions. However, I found that the system in the base game was too limiting to fully allow you to make unique religions. Additionally, I felt that the Norse faith was missing a lot of flavour, even after the Northern Lords expansion. This mod was made to address both these problems.

This mod largely draws inspiration from Norse mythological sources as well as later Scandinavian folklore. Additionally, inspirations have been taken from pop-culture with norse themes. The goal of this mod is not primarily to make Asatrú more historically accurate, although I tried to be accurate where I could.

Want to make a dragon-worshiping cannibal cult? An assassin cult worshipping Loki? A nature-loving faith dedicated to the Vanir gods? Or simply having more norse flavour for Asatrú? Then this mod is for you!

• Adds over 35 new core tenets for Asatrú (see more details below)
• Increases the maximum core tenet limit to 20, allowing you to fully make your own religion without compromise.
• Adds more faith icons for Asatrú
• Adds more CoA emblems.
• Changes Asatrú so that it starts with 7 core tenets: Patron Gods, Call of Valhalla, Aesir’s Brew, Spirit Animals, Heimdall’s Hierarchy, Hamingja and Blót. Also changes Witchcraft from criminal to allowed. Reactivates Lejre as a holy site.
• Ads new potential holy orders and renaming the existing ones.
• Adds new game rule, allowing you to decide if magic should be treated as superstition or something real. If played with magic as real, witches get access to magic spells based on norse myth and Scandinavian folklore.

Some, but not all, tenets include…

Patron Gods in the base game has a limited selection of gods to worship (the ones who have larger archeological evidence of having been worshiped). The version in this mod increases the list of gods, allowing you to worship more obscure gods.

To allow for more diverse faiths with unique themes, the mod ads several variations of Patron Gods, dedicated to different group of deities:
– Matron Goddesses
– Patron Vanir
– Patron Jötnar
– Patron Dragons

There are also similar tenets for gods with common theme (gods of war, gods of the sea, hunting, sorcery, etc.) as well as tenets dedicated to specific gods (Thor, Baldr, Freya, Loki…).

This tenet is a variation of Warmonger, but with a twist: it increases the deadliness of your armies but also increases the risk for commanders and knights dying in battle. Those who die in battle get a Renown bonus, bringing glory to the dynasty.

Mead held a sacred role in norse traditions, and this tenet is meant to highlight this:
– Makes poet a virtue.
– Makes Drunkard a sin (since Odin advices against becoming too drunk in Havamal)
– Ads Norse festivities (that you can participate via decisions during the right month)
– Allows you to appoint an Ale-bringer (court position)
– Allows you make an oath by drinking from the Promise Cup

Allows you to connect to your Fylgja, a part of your “soul” that comes in the shape of an animal. Different combination of personality traits result in a different animal as fylgja. Those with a Bear, Wolf or Boar fylgja can choose to channel their fylgja in battle as a Berserker, Ulvhedin or Jöfurr.

Allows you to select a Hamingja, a female spirit guardian, to watch over your house over generations.

Heimdall’s Hierarchy allows you to take prisoners as thralls (slaves). The thralls can then either be put to work or sold for gold. Male Subjugation works similarly but offers a twist on this: it allows only males to be taken as thralls.

In the Norse sagas, several king and heroes claim to be descendants of various deities. This mod adds these bloodlines as traits (e.g. Blood of Odin, blood of Freyr, etc.) available in the character creator. In turn these tenets make those traits virtues. This allows you to make your bloodline be considered holy.

Allows you to appoint a Court Völva, who can be asked to help you see into your future.

In Swedish folklore, Årsgång is a ritual vision quest done to divine the future. However, doing so exposes one to dark magic and dangerous creatures. This tenet allows you to do an Årsgång once per year, a branching event chain with potential for great rewards but also great risk.

In the sagas, it is said that some families would push their elders of a cliff when they were too old and weak. This tenet allows you to make the jump when you become old. Your relatives can also decide to push you off the cliff against your will.

In Scandinavian folklore, some farmsteads have a Tomte/Nisse, a gnome-like creature that works on the farm but requires regular offerings to keep it happy. Tompta Gudhi allows you to make such a pact with a tome.

Allows you to plant a Vårdträd, a tree that brings luck to your house. As time goes by, the tree’s power increases. However, if the tree is cut down the family will suffer, so defend it well!

Allows you to hire assassins to eliminate targets. Additionally, you can also receive training and become an assassin yourself. As an assassin, you will have a very active role in the elimination of your targets, deciding which murder method you want to use. Your skills will determine how successful you are, and failure may come at a high prize.

In the base game, the tenet Rite is only allowed for faiths with a spiritual head of faith. Cult removes that criteria, allowing you to maintain your temporal head of faith when creating a new faith. This means that you could play as head of faith of multiple faiths (if you switch character after creating a faith). Additionally, both Cult and Branching faith reduces costs when creating a new faith, and make faiths that share HoF see eachother as Righteous.

Initially I want to focus on polishing the existing features of the mod. I suspect that there will be a lot of balancing to adjust. Later, I would like to expand the mod to cover more faiths. I hope to cover Baltic paganism, Slavic paganism, Finnish paganism, Sami religion, Celtic paganism and Hellenism next. Down the line I will also look into expanding Christianity, Islam and the other major religions.

If you wish to contribute to the project, or help with ideas or feedback, you are welcome to join the discord channel[discord.gg]

* När Man Talar om Trollen podcast[www.patreon.com] – for being a great source for information as well as sharing artwork.
* Karax and everyone who worked on the More Tenet Slots mod – which this mod was built on.
* Everyone on the CK3 modding Discord – for helping out and answering questions
* Jonas Lau Markussen[jonaslaumarkussen.com] – for the artwork he has shared online sharing it online